does parliament dream of electric sheep?
TRANSCRIPT
Helen MilnerChief Executive, Tinder FoundationCommissioner, Speaker’s Commission on Digital Democracy
Does Parliament Dreamof Electric Sheep?
1,713,727
A world where everyone
benefits from digital
Online conversations did drive street protests
• Conversations about liberty, democracy, and revolution on blogs and Twitter did immediately precede mass protests
• 25 January 2011, Tahrir Square protests had 600,000 views on YouTube; 23 hyperlocal Egypt videos on the protests had 5.5 million views
Opening Closed Regimes: What Was the Role of Social Media During the Arab Spring? University of Washington, 2011
Arab Spring: What did we learn?
• Authoritarian regimes didn't understand that social media platforms are fluid tentacle networks and therefore harder to restrict freedom of speech than traditional media
• Social media and online activities did provide the organisation and logistical support for offline demonstrations but ultimately it was people and not laptops that marched on Tahir Square
1.A digital team2.Email3.Online donations4.Data analytics5.Social
UK spends most in world shopping online
• UK spends £2,000 per person online shopping, significantly higher than the next highest markets Australia (£1,356 per head) and the US (£1,171 per head).
• More than £1 in every £5 of UK retail spend (other than food) is now online.
30 million35 million
UK Facebook Users UK 2015 General Election Turnout
30 million35 million
UK Facebook Users UK 2015 General Election Turnout
693,800Membership of political parties(inc 190,000 new Labour members since election)
“Over the past 25 years we have lived through a revolution created by the birth of the world wide web and the rapid development of digital technology. This digital revolution has disrupted old certainties and challenged representative democracy at its very heart. With social media … and 24/7 media, the citizen has more sources of information than ever before, yet citizens appear to operate at a considerable distance from their representatives and appear ‘disengaged’ from democratic processes.”
DDC: we opened up our channels
• Input via email, video, a web survey, and a web comment thread
• Roundtable discussions
• Interactions on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn
• A letter to the vice chancellor of every university in the UK
• Online student forums
• We held formal, open (and live-streamed) evidence sessions of the Commission
Five headline recommendations1. By 2020, the House of Commons should ensure that everyone
can understand what it does.
2. By 2020, Parliament should be fully interactive and digital.
3. The 2015 newly elected House of Commons should create immediately a new forum for public participation in the debating function of the House of Commons.
4. By 2020, secure online voting should be an option for all voters.
5. By 2016, all published information and broadcast footage produced by Parliament should be freely available online in formats suitable for reuse. Hansard should be available as open data by the end of 2015.
politically active
digitally active
digitally not active
politically not active
?x
Dig
ital
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Digital Inclusion
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Local + Digital
5000 local UK partners, 25,000 volunteers
A big club with a shared vision
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• Digital Tasks
• Such as: sending an email; filling in a form;
shopping online
• Digital Literacy
• Confident and able to do a number of
tasks independently
• Digital Fluency
• Confident to try whatever need to
do on the internet without help
Tinder Foundation have helped 1.7m people at a cost of £30.25 per person
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Myth Bustingon digital inclusion
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Young People need support to use the internet too - it’s not just about
old people
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Smartphone and tablets are intuitive to use but no evidence (yet) a tool
for digital inclusion
in UK 6% of online people ONLY use a smartphone/tablet for their internet use
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Broadband access is not digital inclusion
Having access is importantHaving good access is important
Using the internet = digital inclusion
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We can’t CAN help (almost) everybody
to be digitally included
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Digital Inclusion
Equality of opportunityand transforming people’s
lives
politically active
digitally active
digitally not active
politically not active
?x
Some good news since report
» Parliamentary Digital Service set up
» E-Petitions new site and clear processes
» 100,000 signatures considered for debate in Parliament
» Heatmap - petition signatures ‘near you’
» Transparency
» Open Hansard hansard.digiminster.com
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The reality …
» Parliament ≠ Uber/Amazon/Air BnB
» Not same incentives or business models
» Can’t choose customers: all citizens ‘use’ Parliament
» MPs could get overwhelmed
» Need digital tools to help them
» MPs important but not whole story
» Committees, Lords, Parliament Staff
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This stuff is hard
» Democracy must be about more than elections … real engagement
» Digital isn’t a silver bullet … need systemic and culture change .. and more internal champions and role models
» Tinder Foundation experience .. not digital alone, face-to-face important too
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People are just people. Just because someone has a smartphone and uses social media it doesn’t mean they will go
on to use a political app. People need to be engaged, they need information, they need to be listened to, they need
dialogue.
Technology is just a tool that people use to get things done.
Digital only exists with people. It’s not separate.We can’t talk about digital democracy without talking about
democracy.
Thank You
@helenmilner on twitter
www.tinderfoundation.org
www.learnmyway.com